'A Wolf Lying in Wait': The Poetry of Abbas Kiarostami

by ARIA FANI

[ spotlight ] Classical Persian poetry is characterized by its creative and highly cultivated language as well as strict regularities of rhyme and meter. Ahmad Shamlu, the highly regarded poet and literary critic, famously described Hafez as the brilliant diamond-cutter of the Persian tongue, with his poetic form of the ghazal as the tool. There are endless articles on the difficulty of translating Hafez -- or the "impossibility" of it, as Mohammad Reza Shafi'i Kadkani says. Those who have attempted the feat all attest to the challenge of transferring both the cultural nuances and the melody of his verse. To an extent, the romanticization of Hafez's musicality has diverted attention from the prismatic world of meanings in his lines. Abbas Kiarostami, among the most celebrated of Iranian filmmakers, has reintroduced Hafez to Persian speakers by removing the musical element -- at least in its classical expression -- and breaking his ghazals into haiku-sized poems. His contemporary retelling highlights the power of Hafez's imagery and invites readers to focus on the meaning of individual narratives. The elimination of rhyme also gives Kiarostami the liberty to convey his perspective through enjambment more effectively.

Kiarostami's international reputation as a filmmaker is well established, but how much do we know about him as an author? He has published two collections of short poems, both in bilingual editions. Within Persian poetry, his style is akin to sher-e sepid ("white," or free, verse). It is unrhymed and, relative to other poetic forms, very close to human speech. It bears many similarities with the Japanese haiku -- it disregards the cultivation of a literary language, places observation at the heart of its generative process, and highlights lifelike narratives and experiences. In contrast to classical Persian poetry, haiku employs language not as an end, but as a means to situate the reader before the heart of its narrative. The reader encounters not dazzling diction, but rather simple, unadorned phrases that make use of a great body of imagery. The serene, nonchalant, and often profoundly philosophical language of haiku allows the poet to swiftly touch on the core of the universal human condition: love, despair, humor, death. The elegant brevity of haiku also prompts readers into an active relationship with the poem -- pleasure is found in locating one's individual perspective on a compact expression that can be viewed from multiple angles. Kiarostami brings these elements of haiku into Persian poetry.

In the introduction to Kiarostami's collection A Wolf Lying in Wait, cotranslator Michael Beard writes, "There are people among us -- bird watchers, photographers, naturalists -- who are at home in the nonhuman world, who can tune in to the rhythms where nature follows its own rules. Out walking with them you may become aware gradually that they are noticing a totally different array of sights -- spotting where the birds are perched, determining which wildflowers are out and when. It is no surprise that Abbas Kiarostami is such a person." Indeed -- patient, perceptive, he alerts us to overlooked narratives and the most delicate of details: "What a pity / I was not a good host / for the snowflake / that settled on my eyelid." His work often makes us feel as if we are looking directly at an image with him: "Moonlight / shining on a narrow path / that I won't take." Although his poetry is most characteristically visual, he continually summons all of our senses: "the smell of burning rue," "the sound of a baby crying," "old wine."

Kiarostami's cinematic sensibility pours into his verse as well. He lightheartedly shifts the vantage point, manipulating his readers' sense of perspective: "The full moon / reflected in water / the water / contained in the bowl / and the thirsty man / deep in sleep." Far from the aesthetic and lyric traditions of classical Persian poetry, hardly closer to Modern Persian verse (sher-e Nimai), his short poems, with their eloquent, cool, and subtle phraseology, are profoundly meditative. Kiarostami is playing an important role in the development of Persian poetry, by turns shining new light on Hafez and Saadi and, as exemplified in the following selections from A Wolf Lying in Wait, sharing his own singular vision.

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